Who
United Way of Southwestern Indiana, Evansville, Indiana
Solution
Andar/360 and online giving powered by e-Pledge
Results
80 workplace campaigns with corporate partners and $5 million in donations processed through e-Pledge
Brent Hill, CFO of United Way of Southwestern Indiana (UWSWI), says that choosing e-Pledge for online giving campaigns was a significant advantage for their internal team and donor base.
Headquartered in Evansville, Indiana, UWSWI supports the Greater Evansville region with a focus on upward mobility through four pathways, including empowering employment, mental health, thriving next-gen, and social stability and growth.
They partner with businesses to run United Way workplace campaigns, and now, 80%+ of them are powered by e-Pledge.
With the benefits e-Pledge offers, including integrated online giving into the Andar/360 CRM, personalized donation pages, and supporting multiple ways to give, UWSWI saw its many advantages.
Also, e-Pledge provides excellent analytics for UWSWI since they now have the data of all the employees at the companies they partner with. They can review lapsed donors, those who have never given, or those who have increased their donations over time.
“Having great analytics at a company that we’re running a campaign for helps us and our campaign champions at those companies improve their campaigns.”
In 2017 – the early stages of using e-Pledge for online giving – UWSWI had limited companies using the tool for workplace campaigns. Everyone wears many hats at UWSWI, and the team of 10 is small but mighty. On top of CFO duties, Brent manages all things technology and e-Pledge, so he worked on a strategy to increase the number of companies using e-Pledge.
“[Using e-Pledge] is an advantage to our pledge processing and really a big advantage to our donor base as well, so we came up with a strategy of how we wanted to go after more of our larger corporations and implement e-Pledge for them.”
Brent Hill, CFO, United Way of Southwestern Indiana
UWSWI’s team began to communicate the benefits of e-Pledge to their corporate partners. They explained that it is easy for donors to give and the automated reporting it provides for the workplace campaign coordinators. After that, they offered a 30-min demo of e-Pledge. This included an explanation of e-Pledge customization options like design and different pledge types.
8 companies signed up after hearing about the donor experience and how reporting is easy, automated, and practical.
In 2020, the pandemic left many companies wanting to limit onsite visits and paper contact. UWSWI decided it was time to increase the promotion of e-Pledge and electronic pledge processing to all their corporate partners.
The targeted push was a hit; they went from 8 corporations to 80 using e-Pledge for online giving! Now 80% of all workplace campaigns UWSWI runs are powered by e-Pledge.
Today, UWSWI partners with small businesses and large (up to 6000 employees!) to run e-Pledge campaigns. From hospitals and law firms to technology companies, thousands of employees in various industries use e-Pledge. UWSWI has even had up to 30 campaigns running concurrently.
UWSWI has processed over $5 million in donations using e-Pledge, making a significant impact on the Greater Evansville region.
For more information on e-Pledge, contact our team.
Who
United Way of California Capital Region, Sacramento, CA
Fundraising Reach
$10 million
Solution
Andar/360
Old habits die hard. Though United Way California Capital Region's Our Promise campaign had been using paper pledge forms since 1957, the system was far from perfect. What was already a long and arduous process (distributing and collecting 290,000 paper pledge forms from across the large State of California presented many difficulties in itself) was only highlighted when the pandemic hit. As 80% of the state workforce went remote overnight, the time to go digital was more apparent than ever.
With the nudge of necessity from the pandemic, United Way California Capital Region (UWCCR) chose Andar Software's e-Pledge solution to offer donors a way to give safely from the comfort of their own homes.
It was a complex undertaking to switch from paper to digital, and relationship management was crucial to launching e-Pledge. Tabitha Angel, Senior Director at UWCCR, credits a strong relationship with Andar (as well as the State) for helping them get up and running as quickly as possible – in what was an impressive four-month launch!
As they built out the donor portal within e-Pledge, they wanted to prioritize ease of use and donation. They worked closely with Andar Software developers to customize e-Pledge to suit their requirements, design and specific security needs. "They have really great developers at Andar," says Tabitha. UWCCR decided to offer three different pledge types: a payroll deduction, one-time gift, or a "do not wish to give at this time" option. Though the goal of a campaign is always to raise funds, they never wanted employees to feel forced or pressured to give. Giving this option was a great solution to this situation.
UWCCR decided to keep the pledge section as one page for straightforward use and used hyperlinking and search features to allow donors the flexibility to find the specific nonprofits that they wanted to donate to. They could also accept credit card payment – a huge upgrade from the previous cash or check donation limitation.
Additionally, before e-Pledge, donors never had the ability to update personal information on their account, like a simple change of address. This portal allowed them this important flexibility and the ability to check and track their own donation history.
So, the big question is: was it worth it?
The answer from UWCCR was a resounding yes. And the results speak for themselves.
Our Promise Final Campaign Stats
Though it was large undertaking upfront, making the move to e-Pledge ultimately played out to be an incredible investment of both time and money. Not only were they able to save money on processing, but also on the pure amount of labor that was previously needed for data entry. e-Pledge also helped take human error out of the equation; the digital system eliminated the occasional mistakes that happen when humans are the ones responsible for data entry. And, to make things even better, the process was an incredible efficiency improvement, drastically decreasing the timeline of processing.
"[e-Pledge] created a better system for us - it was awesome! It saved us so much time and labor and was a huge win for us", says Tabitha.
Thanks to the online shift with e-Pledge, Our Promise is better set up to serve both its donors and employees while continuing their incredible charitable giving work.
Who
United Way of Midland County, Midland, MI
Fundraising Reach
$5.1 million for local campaigns, $4 million in local Disaster Relief dollar, $2 million in out of area campaigns
Solution
Andar/360
Kali Cochran, Director of Investor Relations at United Way of Midland County says that having Andar/360—a highly customizable CRM system—was crucial to adapt and respond to a pandemic and a devastating flood.
The pandemic took its toll on Midland County, leaving about a third of the state's workforce unemployed. The schools and community program closures left vulnerable students, seniors, and homeless populations without meals.
In May 2020—with precarious timing amidst the pandemic—heavy rain resulted in catastrophic failures of two dams northwest of Midland. This once-in-500-years flood led to 10,000 Midland County residents evacuating their homes.
These two crises created new needs in the most vulnerable populations like never before. Kali says, "we are facing steep increases in health and human services need at the highest level in our generation. At the time of great economic uncertainty, many nonprofits are facing cuts in funding, suspension of revenue-generating programming, and doing more with less. We are committed to ensuring the 56 vital programs through our 25 partner agencies survive and thrive."
When a crisis strikes, United Way of Midland County does not buckle. They rise together because they are built for this.
In 2020, United Way of Midland County's campaign results and volunteer support were remarkable:
So, how did they do it?
"Having all the data and tools in one place is crucial to managing the multiple facets of an effort like that effectively. What we did for the pandemic relief and the flood wouldn't be possible without Andar/360. Andar is so adaptable as a CRM system, so we were able to leverage the tools that we are familiar with and tweak them slightly to create a completely new experience for our corporate partners".
Kali Cochran, Director of Investor Relations, United Way of Midland County
"As part of the disaster planning committee for our community, we are responsible for bringing in financial and in-kind donations and recruiting volunteers to assist with disaster relief efforts," says Kali.
In March, United Way of Midland acted fast. They utilized Andar/360 to create an event registration portal for volunteers, emergency relief pages to process donations, and custom webpages for key companies in the area. They strengthened their corporate sponsorships by managing all COVID-19 donations for Dow, DuPont, and Corteva and tracking and distributing funds from all over the world with e-Pledge. After recruiting volunteers to pack and deliver meals safely, Andar/360 texting made it possible to communicate clearly and effectively while coordinating volunteers.
In May, a flood occurred. United Way of Midland ran two different volunteer websites, one for pandemic relief and one for flood relief efforts. Working with emergency response, they recruited volunteers to help manage emergency shelters and eventually rebuild homes destroyed by the flood.
"Having all the data and tools in one place is crucial to managing the multiple facets of an effort like that effectively. What we did for the pandemic relief and the flood wouldn't be possible without Andar/360. Andar is so adaptable as a CRM system, so we were able to leverage the tools that we are familiar with and tweak them slightly to create a completely new experience for our corporate partners".
Kali Cochran, Director of Investor Relations, United Way of Midland County
With Andar/360, fundraising, volunteer recruitment, and marketing are all in one system. "We were able to communicate to the right person at the right time, and it was critical to respond promptly through both of these disasters," says Kali.
United Way of Midland used Andar/360 to drive volunteer signups, communicate with and text volunteers, process donations, and strengthen corporate partnerships leading to a year of surpassing campaign goals and mobilizing thousands of volunteers.
During the demanding time of quickly responding to the pandemic and the flood, Kali says that the Andar/360 Customer Support team was there for her. She says, "Andar as a CRM system is amazing, but your team is also amazing! Your team understands the importance of United Way's work and never hesitates to jump in and help when thousands of people are suffering. When our community needs United Way, you are there for us".
If you're looking for a solution to manage volunteers, collect funds online, and store your donor data centrally and securely, contact us.
